Think differently!

A man who made caskets had an emergency order for one of his products. Considering the extra charges involved and the urgency of the situation, he could not wait for the driver of his delivery truck to report for duty. He decided to drive the truck himself and personally make the delivery. Unfortunately, a few hundred meters to the point of delivery, the truck broke down.

Every attempt he made to get someone to stop and help was abortive as no one wanted to put a coffin in his vehicle. Not wanting to delay the delivery, he knew he had to do something fast. Pronto, he managed to convince some people to assist in putting the coffin on his head and walk to his destination. After going about one hundred meters, he came to a police check-point. Seeing someone carrying a coffin, the officers were more than convinced that they were going to get a handsome sum as gratification before they would let him pass.

“Stop there!” yelled one of the officers, “where are you taking this to and where is your receipt for it? You must be one of those people who go to exhume dead bodies and steal coffins from the cemetery down the road.”

Remembering that he had actually seen a cemetery not far from that point, the man put on his thinking cap and did a few calculations. Then he spoke;

“Yes officer. I am actually coming from that cemetery. The thing is that I died last week and I was buried there. But I don’t like that particular cemetery because the other corpses are not too friendly. So I decided to relocate.”

In a matter of seconds, the policemen were nowhere to be found!

The world belongs to those who can think on their feet. The world around you may be confusing but if you want to ride the waves well, you must not be confused. Strategic thinkers rule their environment. To be effective in thinking your way out of a crisis, the following tips would be of great help:

1. Do not panic. In a crisis, what happens IN you is more important than what happens to or around you. For most people, the natural reaction to crisis is to panic. Panic upsets and completely undermines your thinking process. Consequently, knee-jerk reactions become norm. In trying to fight fires, we may end up creating more or amplifying the scope of what already is.
2. Be at peace within yourself. The peace of God is the harbinger of productive thinking. Jesus gives us an assurance in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]” (AMPL.)
3. In a crisis, focus on the solution, not the problem. A crisis is the peak of a problem that has hitherto defied solutions proffered. Such a situation cannot provide needed motivation. You must therefore learn to keep your eyes on the expected outcome and start your thinking process from there. Once you have decided what the desired end is, fix your mind on it. Strategic thinkers work from the answer to the problem, not vice-versa.
4. Visualize a worst case scenario and overcome the attendant fear. In most problems that we face in life or as leaders of enterprise, our worst fear whether we admit it or not, is that of death. We dread that more than we dread possible failure. As long as you are hostage to fear of the unexpected outcome, you can never productively and positively engage your thinking faculty.
5. Become a box-breaker. Go beyond the out-of-the-box thinking when you are faced with a serious dilemma. Break the box and give yourself a “tabular rasa” that sets no limits whatsoever on the possibilities of your thought process.

If you continue to think like the problem, you cannot solve it!

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!